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[QuQuasar]

GENERAL

Once a fortress is packed to the gills with 100-200 dwarves and everything is running smoothly, recreating most of these production orders with triple the quantity will reduce the number job completion notifications.

I add 5 to all the regeants for 'when available' orders (eg Make (10) when regeant at least 15) to reduce the number of times production orders are cancelled because the last item in the list happens to be being carted to a stockpile at the moment it's requested.

Another thing to note about work orders is that they don't reserve material. If you have exactly 10 logs, and have daily work orders for both "Make Barrels (10) when logs at least 10", as well as "Make Bins (10) when logs at least 10", both orders will start at the same time and you'll be out of logs by the time you hit 5 barrels and 5 bins, at which point you'll get a job cancellation.

You can get around this by adding up the work orders that use the same reagent. For example, if you're making 10 each of shields, bins, barrels, buckets and ash you should check for at least 50 logs. This particularly affects barrels and bags, which are used by a fair number of different types of work orders, so make sure you have a stock of spares.



CONTAINERS

1. Make Barrel (10) when logs at least 65 and empty barrels at most 25.
2. Make Large Pots (10) when rocks at least 20 and empty pots at most 25.
3. Make Bins (10) when logs at least 65 and empty bins at most 9.
3. Make Buckets (10) when logs at least 65 and empty buckets at most 20.
4. Make yarn bags (10) when yarn at least 15 and empty bags and boxes at most 15.
5. Make silk bags (10) when silk at least 15 and empty bags and boxes at most 15.
6. Make cloth bags (10) when cloth at least 15 and empty pig tail bags and boxes at most 15.
7. Make Jugs (10) when stone at least 30 and empty jugs at most 20.

This will keep a stock of 50 barrels/pots, 45 bags, 20 buckets, 20 jugs and 9 bins available whatever I need them for.



EDIBLES

1. Brew plants to drink (20) when brewable plants at least 25 and empty food storage at least 55 and drinks at most 4800.
2. Brew fruit to drink (20) when brewable fruit at least 25 and empty food storage at least 55 and drinks at most 4800.
3. Process plants to barrel (10) when processable plants at least 55 and empty barrels at least 15.
4. Process plants to bag (10) when processable plants at least 15 and empty bags at least 35.
5. Mill Plants (10) when millable plants at least 15 and empty bags at least 35.
6. Mill seeds/nuts (10) into paste when oil bearing seeds at least 20.
7. Press honey from honeycomb (10) when honeycomb at least 15 and empty jugs at least 25.
8. Press paste into oil (10) when paste at least 15 and empty jugs at least 25.
9. Cook lavish meal (40) when cookable solids at least 10 and cookables at least 30 and food at most 2400.
10. Milk animal (NUMBER_OF_MILKABLE_ANIMALS, checked monthly) and empty buckets at least NUMBER_OF_MILKABLE_ANIMALS
11. Make cheese (10) when milk at least 10.

This will sort all our cooking and food processing jobs and maintain enough prepared food and drink for two years, assuming a fortress size of 100 dwarves. Seeds, drinks, tallow, oil and brewable plants should be forbidden in the kitchen screen. The poultry and fishing industries will take care of themselves automatically, and the meat industry is a PITA, creating unusable cartilage and nervous tissue that rots, fills up your refuse stockpile and must be dumped manually.

CLOTHING and ARMOUR

1. Shear animal (NUMBER_OF_SHEARABLE_ANIMALS, checked yearly).
2. Spin thread (10) when spinnable wool at least 15.
3. Process Plants (10) when processable plants at least 15.
4. Dye thread (20) when dye at least 25 and undyed thread at least 25.
4a. Dye cloth (20) when dye at least 25 and undyed cloth at least 25.
5. Make cloth dress (4) when cloth at least 10 and dresses at most 6.
6. Make cloth socks (4) when cloth at least 10 and socks at most 6.
7. Make leather hood (4) when leather at least 25 and hoods at most 6.
8. Make leather cloak (4) when leather at least 25 and cloaks at most 6.
9. Make leather gloves (4) when leather at least 25 and gloves at most 6.
10. Make leather trousers (4) when leather at least 25 and trousers at most 6.
11. Make leather armor (4) when leather at least 25 and armor at most 6.
12. Make bone helm (4) when bone at least 15 and helms at most 6.
13. Make bone gauntlets (4) when bone at least 15 and gauntlets at most 6.
14. Make bone greaves (4) when bone at least 15 and greaves at most 6.
15. Make steel helm (4) when steel at least 20 and helms at most 6.
16. Make steel mail shirt (4) when steel at least 20 and mail shirts at most 6.
17. Make steel gauntlets (4) when steel at least 20 and gauntlets at most 6.
18. Make steel high boots (4) when steel at least 20 and helms at most 6.
19. Make wood shield (4) when logs at least 65 and shields at most 6.

This will provide civilian armour for everyone, with cloth undergarments, leather overgarments and steel/bone plate, assuming I can secure the requisite leather and steel. To get civilians to equip the armor layers, I need to assign them to all to a series of 'Noncombatant' squads with the following uniform, 'over clothes':

Helm
Armor
Gauntlets
High Boots
Shield
Weapon, Individual choice

Miners, woodcutters and hunters should not be included in the noncombatant squads, because their equipment conflicts with military uniforms and prevents them from working.

To prevent worn clothes and goblin-brought gear from being equipped you will need two clothing stockpiles. The first 't'akes from your clothiers and leatherworkers shop, and will hold your fresh gear. The second is your worn/goblin clothing stockpile. It gives to a minecart stop that drops it into an atom smasher, magma, or (if you want to sell it) behind a forbidden door that you open when the traders arrive.

Throw shoes and mittens in magma, as they will prevent dwarves from equipping high boots and gauntlets respectively.

SOAP

1. Make ash (10) when logs at least 65 and ash at most 10.
2. Make lye from ash (10) when ash at least 15 and empty buckets at least 15.
3. Make soap from oil (10) when oil containing jugs at least 15 and lye-containing buckets at least 15 and rock nut oil soap at most 10.

Instead of oil, one can also make soap from tallow. Create a tallow stockpile set to 'g'ive to the Soap Makers workshop, and any tallow that gets delivered to that pile will be reserved for soap making. Tallow is quicker to obtain in the early game, but oil is easier to automate in the long term. Plus, I mean, who wants to wash themselves with animal fat? Ew.

SMELTING

1. Smelt Bitumous Coal (20) when at least 25
2. Smelt Lignite (20) when at least 25
2. Smelt Hematite (20) when at least 25
3. Smelt Limonite (20) when at least 25
4. Smelt Magnetite (20) when at least 25
5. Make Pig Iron (20) when iron bars at least 25 and flux stone at least 25 and coal at least 25
6. Make Steel (20) when iron bars at least 25 and pig iron bars at least 25 and flux stone at least 25 and coal at least 25
7. Smelt Native Silver (20) when at least 25
8. Smelt Horn Silver (20) when at least 25
9. Smelt Native Platinum (20) when at least 25
10. Smelt Native Aluminum (20) when at least 25
11. Smelt Bismuthinite (20) when at least 25
12. Burn wood to charcoal (20) when logs at least 65 and fuel at most 20

Note: There are no 'best' combination of metals and alloys: in some forts you might want loads of fine pewter, in others you'll find bronze more valuable. Heck, some ores are valuable without being smelted, for artifacts or simply for their colour (lookin' at you, garnierite). So I'd probably include a bunch of additional orders in an actual fort to automatically produce (for example) rose gold, lay pewter and black bronze. Not to worry, smelting jobs are easy to schedule once you work out what you're making.

There are a few rules, though: some ores can never be used in alloy reactions and might as well be smelted, making steel from iron is never a bad decision, and if you make silver alloys you should always use tetrahedrite or galena and not native silver or horn silver.

GLASS

1. Collect Sand (10) when empty pig tail bags and boxes at least 15 and sand-bearing items at most 25.
2. Make ash (10) when logs at least 30 and ash at most 10.
4. Make potash (10) when when ash at least 15 and potash at most 25.
4. Make pearlash (10) when when potash at least 15 and pearlash at most 25.[/size]

Rather than queued in the job manager, the 'Collect Sand' task should be assigned in a workshop profile so the sand-collecting kiln and the glass-making kiln can be kept seperate. Don't turn on farm fertilizing if you want to make clear glass.

BASIC CRAFTS

1. Make bone crafts (20) when bone at least 45.
1. Make shell crafts (20) when shell at least 45.
2. Make horn/tooth crafts (20) when horn at least 25.
3. Make wax crafts (20) when wax at least 25.
4. Make totem (10) when skull at least 15.

None of these materials are useful for anything other than trade goods, so we might as well process them and send them off with the garbage collectors.

[Urist9876]

The work orders you use are focussed on production.

It can be advantageous to use work orders to manage happiness.
This can be done by building a workshop for every dwarf and limit the use to that dwarf only. Next add some quality creating work order at that workshop (through the workshop interface, not the manager's)

Clothes/armor with wear will count for delaying work orders. Destroy / sell / melt them asap. Bins can ruin your day when in use and everything in it suddenly doesn't count anymore. Alternatively since your fortress seems full, you could just set a fixed amount of clothes to be produced every year.

[anewaname]

Some differences in how I usually set things up:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

For job conditions related to ore, stone, or logs regeants, most are deleted. This causes job cancellations when the resource is not available, so it is obvious more of those resources are needed. I also maintain a larger margin than +1, about +10.

Most tallow is cooked, but enough is saved for soap by having the kitchen's stockpile 'g'ive to a two barrel tallow stockpile.

The butcher's shop is in an aboveground tile so much of the refuse rots inside the workshop, because no stockpile is set up to accept it.

When migrants are "officially" inducted into the fort, they are put into squads (all adult dwarfs go into squads). The miners/woodcutters/hunters go into a few squads that have no barracks to train at, have no schedule, have no uniform, and those squads are never activated so, there is no equipment conflicts.

No mittens or shoes are produced due to the uniform conflicts, but caps were fixed at some point so they are allowed in the fort.

For managing dwarf happiness, there are a set of workshops that each trigger monthly jobs. It is less accurate than Urist9876's method but the forts usually have over 200 dwarfs.

[Garfunkel]

Good stuff, thanks!

This should be added to the Wiki. Even better if it could be somehow just copy/pasted into a new game.

[QuQuasar]

Clothes/armor with wear will count for delaying work orders. Destroy / sell / melt them asap. Bins can ruin your day when in use and everything in it suddenly doesn't count anymore. Alternatively since your fortress seems full, you could just set a fixed amount of clothes to be produced every year.

Good call. I generally sell them every time the traders arrive, but it may be necessary to maintain a larger clothing stockpile.

(Edit) Looking around, I found a good solution. 'g'ive from the clothiers shop to a "Fresh clothes" stockpile: this will be where your dwarves come to get new clothes from. Then connect your only other clothing stockpile to the incinerator/atom smasher.

Most tallow is cooked, but enough is saved for soap by having the kitchen's stockpile 'g'ive to a two barrel tallow stockpile.

Oh, that works! I still prefer oil soaps, but this is a really elegant solution to ensure tallow is always available without needing to forbid it.

For job conditions related to ore, stone, or logs reagents, most are deleted. This causes job cancellations when the resource is not available, so it is obvious more of those resources are needed.

Hmm. I like that approach, I can see how it would be helpful. The only problem I foresee is that you risk not having any of those items available when you need them most (eg. no logs spare for beds when a new migrant wave arrives).

But I suppose that could be resolved by just manually forbidding some logs, or linking a wood stockpile to an unused workshop.


I'm currently experimenting with Perpetual jobs for food and booze. Eg:

1. Brew plants to drink (0) when brewable plants at least 21 and empty food storage at least 21 and drinks less than 2000.
2. Brew fruit to drink (0) when brewable fruit at least 21 and empty food storage at least 21 and drinks less than 2000.
3. Cook lavish meal (0) when cookable solids at least 10 and cookables at least 30 and food less than 1000.

This results in all the input resources getting cooked/brewed in one big marathon, ending with a Job Cancellation report. It's basically just putting your kitchens on repeat whenever food drops below 1000, which is exactly what I do anyway.

I may have to build a separate kitchen with it's own production order explicitly for getting rid of all those royal jelly jugs, though. Beekeeping messes up your input stockpiles something fierce.

[brewer bob]

Looking around, I found a good solution. 'g'ive from the clothiers shop to a "Fresh clothes" stockpile: this will be where your dwarves come to get new clothes from. Then connect your only other clothing stockpile to the incinerator/atom smasher.

Ooh, will have to give that a try in my next fort. Never really learned to manage clothing, so I tend to just put most of my dwarves in the military and set their armor to replace clothes.

[Thisfox]

Looking around, I found a good solution. 'g'ive from the clothiers shop to a "Fresh clothes" stockpile: this will be where your dwarves come to get new clothes from. Then connect your only other clothing stockpile to the incinerator/atom smasher.

Ooh, will have to give that a try in my next fort. Never really learned to manage clothing, so I tend to just put most of my dwarves in the military and set their armor to replace clothes.

I'm amazed by how many people put every adult in their fort into the military. I rarely need more than a half dozen armed dorfs (usually a trained force of fishmongers and gelders who came looking for a better life) and the rest cheerfully remain outside military service. We don't have that many battles with the various enemies, we just don't need many soldiers. I do wish we could still recruit professional soldiers through the tavern though.

How do you deal with equipment mismatch problems on your miners, or do your miners just go naked? Or do you not mine anything?

[brewer bob]

I'm amazed by how many people put every adult in their fort into the military. I rarely need more than a half dozen armed dorfs (usually a trained force of fishmongers and gelders who came looking for a better life) and the rest cheerfully remain outside military service. We don't have that many battles with the various enemies, we just don't need many soldiers. I do wish we could still recruit professional soldiers through the tavern though.

How do you deal with equipment mismatch problems on your miners, or do your miners just go naked? Or do you not mine anything?

I really don't need that many military dwarves and most of the squads are just inactive, but trotting around in their armor so I don't have to think of clothes. To be honest, I often find sieges one of the less interesting parts of the game (except maybe when you don't have a military, which sounds contradictory to putting most/half of the dorfs into the military) and later on in the game more of a nuisance when there's a couple squads of legendary fighters (sometimes I just turn invasions off at this point).

Miners, woodcutters and hunters are left out of the military. I don't have so many of them, so keeping them clothed isn't a problem (though, naked miners is a tempting idea).

[anewaname]

No problems with them in the military if they never attempt to wear their military uniform. Do not assign the squad to train at a barracks and do not assign the squad Move or Kill orders, then they will never attempt to wear their military uniform. The value of putting them all in the military is better organization for the player, especially if playing without dfhack or therapist.

[Thisfox]

Huh. I play vanilla, have never downloaded the hacks etc, or even a tileset, and yet seem to organise them just fine without more military groups. I actually don't know many people who do play with all the extra stuff, the game is excellent without a need for more.

We should probably do a survey, but I never know how accurate they are.

[Garfunkel]

I use this for every game as it's really useful once the fort grows to a certain size. But I do have a problem with this line:

8. Press paste into oil (10) when paste at least 15 and empty jugs at least 25.

I can't find anything to fit that description in the job manager.

[anewaname]

When you add the job to "Pres liquid from paste", go to 'c'onditions and hit 'r'. The two items added will be the paste and the jugs (not sure if you need to modify them further).